Category Archives: Allietare

For the first Design Wall Monday post of 2017, I offer the center of Allietare, Bonnie Hunter’s Mystery quilt from 2015. I’ve been working on it as I’ve been assembling it while using the 2016 Mystery Quilt, En Provence as my leader/enders. There are a ton of 4-patches in the new quilt.

The 6th clue came out Friday morning. But could I find either of my Companion Angle rulers? So, I had to start cleaning my flat surfaces. from the Final Countdown Task 2. The ironing board has been cleared.

Yes, I’ve found my ruler — not that it was on the ironing board. More cleaning was required. So, I tackled the floor. Yes, this is better.

In the foreground are the fabrics I’m using for EnProvence. On the chair is a quilt that was supposed to be a give Christmas 2015. The shoebox of fabrics is from two quilts — Allietare and a StripTwist. Time to put the Allietare fabric up. They are sitting on two boxes of upholstery samples. The two laundry baskets have batting in them. The box with the yellow bag and the box it is sitting on are scraps I was given in early 2015. Perhaps I need to go through them this year. There’s a box of books/magazines that I will probably give away — need to flip through them one more time. The green crate in the corner contains ‘sewing stuff’. I went through it last night while I was looking for the ruler. Sorted, tossed and put away enough stuff that the box is no longer overflowing. I can’t say the same for the larger crate it is sitting on — more scraps and another crate of scraps under the shelf. But no Companion Angle ruler.

That left the cutting board.

I started clearing it off. Stuff had gotten piled high on it. After excavating the top 2 or 3 layers I found the ruler. So naturally I quit cleaning. Actually, I gave up. I’ve been fighting the crud for the past few days so I went to bed.

I go back to work tomorrow, so no long days of quilting. My goal this week is to get En Provence finished and the cutting table cleared.

Today’s post is actually of my design wall! This past weekend I went on a retreat and finished the Allietare blocks — that’s the mystery quilt that Bonnie Hunter presented this past December. These are not all of the blocks, but just the one’s I tossed up on the design wall last night.

When I head to a retreat, I do my best to get up frequently and walk to the ironing board. This results in lots of progress on the leader/ender project, which currently is Tumblers. I have all but 8 rows finished, and those 8 rows just need 3 pieces attached to them. I’ve started sewing the rows together and have 16 sewn together.

It is about 70″ wide and eventually will be 80″ long.

The rest of this month is going to be crazy, so I doubt I’ll do much but repack my bags as I head out to another retreat on the 6th.

Just to say that I have, I made one blocks for Alletore. The pieces are now packed away. I’ve also folded up the rest of the fabric, including that for the setting triangles and bundled it together. The project box and fabric bundle will go with me to the quilt retreat next month.

So, to the change of direction. I have two quilts that I really need to finish, and have picked the backing of the Blue Disappearing 9-Patch to work on next. What can I say? I really want to work on the Tumblers, but can only do that as a leader/ender and piecing the backing will allow me to do that. But first I have to cut the squares for the backing out of what’s left of the shirts.

Would you believe this backing will be the 12th top/backing I’ve made from the shirts? – Oh wait — I forgot about the Alphabet Blocks since they haven’t been set yet. So, that’s 13, not including the occasional use of shirting is various blocks. Needless to say, the there’s not much left to the shirts.

Since, I’m a Scrap User’s System convert, there’s too much fabric to just throw away, but quite frankly, I’m not sure what to do with it. For now, it’s going into one of the shirt bins, nice and flat.

Clue # 4 of Alletore is done! Now on to Clue # 5. Oh wait. I didn’t get that clue downloaded and saved. But no fear – I can use Clue # 6 to back into Clue # 5. This evening I’m going to finish the cutting which I’ve skipped — the pieces for the outer edge of the quilt center and then pack everything together so I can work on other projects which need to be finished sooner than later.

Meanwhile, the Tumbers Leader/Ender project has been moving along. 400 more seams and then I’ll be ready to sew rows into a quilt top.

Work & life continue to cut into my quilting time more than I would like, but I was able to spend several hours working on last year’s mystery quilt. This past weekend I spent most of my quilting time simply cutting fabric and digging deeper looking for more golds and blacks.

I’m going to allow myself one more week of “quilting for me”, then I have several projects that I must get done.

This evening I finished Part 1 of Allietare – the 2015 Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt. I don’t think I’ve ever finished one of the mysteries “timely”, but that’s OK. I’ve taken this week to work on something for me — or at least something of my choosing — instead of something I “have” to work on and it’s been delightful. I need to remember to work a few minutes of “my stuff” in when I’m doing other things to keep my sanity.

Next up “Santa Hats”.

I finished one set back in December and I’m not sure how many groups I need to make — but I think all the fabric is cut.

I am very happy to have March behind me. Too much work and not enough time relaxing at the sewing machine, let alone to blog. My day job had me up at 12:50 AM Sunday morning and again at 6:45 AM, so late Saturday night I decided to work on something for me – or at least of my choosing. I pulled out the project box and pressed fabrics for Alletore to see about making progress on it. The only problem was the HST units I had completed (about 100 of them) were not in the box. Neither were the pieces I had cut — and I had cut all of clue 1 and clue 2 before I set the project aside to finish up the Christmas gifts.

Then I finally noticed a salad box on another shelf. It contained the missing pieces.

So, yesterday while waiting for stuff to happen at work, I stitched a few more HST Units. I used my new Bloc-Loc ruler to trim them. I must say they look pretty good. Progress was also made on the Tumbler quilt. I’m now stitching groups of 4s into groups of 8.

As far as how I like the Bloc-Loc ruler, I think I like it, especially now that I have Invisi-Grip on it.

This past week has gone by in a blur – lots of errands and not much time at the sewing machine. The good news is I have finally finished the quilting on the Red Disappearing 9-Patch and I have the binding cut. This means I now have two quilts to bind as the Hardware Quilt still needs binding — and I don’t have those strips cut.

While I had the cutting board cleared, I made one set of clue 2 of the mystery quilt. I started with just a single headless goose, using the Companion Angle ruler, which came out OK. But then apparently the next 3 I cut wrong as they almost have their head. I finished up the set using squares and the stitch and flip method – which I think I’ll use going forward.

Looking at this week, I have 2 evenings of activities which will limit my quilting time, so I doubt I’ll get much done on the mystery – I’ll have to focus on getting the Crazy Challenge quilts done.

See what others have on their Design Wall over at Patchwork Times and how others are doing on their mystery quilt over at Quiltville.

This morning I have a little bit of several things in the works. I started Allietare, the Bonnie Hunter Mystery Quilt — because clearly I don’t have anything to work on — 😉 Although I had all of clue 1 cut out, I only got 1/3 of them made since I got a chance to use the long arm.

This is the Hardware quilt which I quilted on Saturday. It still needs binding which is on my list for this week.

The Red Disappearing 9-Patch is maybe 1/3 quilted – I set it aside – I thought briefly – to work on Allietare and I haven’t gotten back to it. It too is also on my list for this week.

Hopefully I can get these two quilts finished up by midweek so I have plenty of time to finish up the rest of the Crazy Challenge II quilts.